CuratorSpace Artist Bursary #7: Julia McKinlay

Julia McKinlay is an artist and PhD researcher based in Leeds. Her PhD is with Leeds Beckett University in collaboration with Yorkshire Sculpture International. Working across print, sculpture and drawing, she uses materials and processes that mimic events in nature. Molluscs, the bi-products of industrial processes and metamorphic forces in the print studio are current areas of investigation.

"I am currently developing a new body of work and exhibition space, which will be situated in the front garden of my home, a back-to-back terrace house in the Leeds suburb of Burley. There are few project spaces in Leeds for early career artists to access for exhibitions and to test out new work. The large community of artists in Leeds therefore rely on meanwhile spaces which often fall through at the last minute, making it difficult to plan ahead and fundraise. My work will form the inaugural exhibition for the space, currently known as Threshold. Following this, I will invite other artists to test their work in this public, outdoor environment.

The work I am proposing to make for this project explores the tension between organic and inorganic materials. This has developed from ‘Coiled in a Single Plane, Skimmed and Separated,’ 2019 an installation made in collaboration with H. Downs Foundry, Huddersfield and exhibited during Index Festival in group exhibition ‘Kuroko’. Several of the sculptures in this work were dipped and sprayed in slag, a bi-product from iron casting at the foundry.

Slag is the accumulated impurities found in molten iron, drawn out and fired out of the back of a furnace. It forms a kind of fabricated geological mass that looks and feels like volcanic rock. The sculpture I will make for this project would further explore this material, presenting it within a steel framework as ambiguous specimens of an unknown landmass. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to exhibit my work in the public realm and to support other artists in doing the same."

See more of Julia's work here: https://www.curatorspace.com/artists/JuliaMcKinlay

 

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